The "Mad Men" Reading List
UPDATE: Click here to see the Official New York Public Library and AMC Mad Men Reading List!
You might remember my original list, which will always be available here.
This revised list will be easier to follow and, like my previous list, it will be updated as books appear in new episodes. Details on literary references will continue in the comments field. As mentioned in my original blog post, some of the books on the list are featured more prominently in the series than others, but all are a great way to gain insight into the episodes and the social and cultural times in which the series is set.
You might also be interested in taking a look at the Sally Draper reading list, the Glen Bishop reading list, the Mad Men Mystery Solved blog post, and my Mad Men and Sally Draper reading lists on BiblioCommons.
For #MadMenReading related discussions and other news, you can follow me and Mid-Manhattan Library on Twitter and Facebook.
Lastly, as any ad man will tell you, a picture is worth a thousand words, so be sure to stop by Mid-Manhattan Library's Art and Picture Collections for all your visual resource needs!
The conversation is about to begin again. Pour yourself another scotch, and enjoy!
Jump to Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5, Season 6
Season 7
Episode 14 - "Person to Person"
The Goodbye Look / Ross MacDonald (click here for more details)
Conversations on Living: 2nd Series / Jiddu Krishnamurti, and Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality / Frederick S. Perls (click here for more details)
Episode 13 - "The Milk and Honey Route" (click here for more details)
Hawaii / James Michener, The Andromeda Strain / Michael Crichton
Episode 12 - "Lost Horizon"
On the Road / Jack Kerouac (click here for more details)
Episode 8 - "Severance"
Mildred Pierce / James M. Cain, U.S.A. Trilogy / John Dos Passos (click here for more details)
Episode 6 - "The Strategy"
Katie Mulholland / Catherine Cookson (click here for more details)
The Ceremony of Innocence / Ronald Ribman
Episode 4 - "The Monolith"
From the Earth to the Moon / Jules Verne (click here for more details)
Listen to the Warm / Rod McKuen (click here for more details)
The Detective / Roderick Thorp, Shadow of a Bull / Maia Wojciechowska (click here and here for more details)
Episode 3 - "Field Trip"
Frankenstein / Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Dracula / Bram Stoker (click here for more details)
Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book: For the Hostess and Host of Tomorrow
Episode 1 - "Time Zones"
A Small Town in Germany / John Le Carré (click here for more details)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain (click here for more details)
Season 7 Promotional Cast Photo
The Penny Wars / Elliott Baker (click here for more information)
Season 6
Episode 12 - "The Quality of Mercy" (click here for more details)
Evolution / Ruth E. Moore (click here for more details)
Episode 11 - "Favors"
Nicholas and Alexandra / Robert K. Massie (click here for more details)
Episode 10 - "A Tale of Two Cities" (click here for more details)
Bhagavad Gita (click here for more details)
How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success In Selling / Frank Bettger (click here for more details)
Episode 8 - "The Crash"
Something / Ralph Waldo Emerson (click here for more details)
Third Girl / Agatha Christie (click here for more details)
Twice 22 / Ray Bradbury, Tai-Pan / James Clavell, The Smokejumpers / Randle M. Hurst, The Sunday Gentleman / Irving Wallace (click here for more details)
Episode 12 - "Commissions and Fees"
Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion / Herbert Aptheker (click here for more details)
Episode 11 - "The Other Woman"
Mein Kampf / Adolf Hitler (click here for more details)
The Sand Pebbles / Richard McKenna
A Thousand Days / John F. Kennedy in the White House / Arthur Schlesinger
Season 4
Episode 13 — "Tomorrowland"
The Clue of the Black Keys / Carolyn Keene
(See The Sally Draper reading list for more details)
Episode 5 — "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword"
The Twenty-One Balloons / William Pène DuBois
(See "A Mad Men Mystery Solved" for more details)
Helping Yourself with Psychiatry / Frank Caprio, Set Theory and Logic / Robert Stoll, Meeting with Japan / Fosco Maraini, The Corps / W.E.B. Griffin
(See 10/23/10 update for more details)
Episode 9 — "Wee Small House"
Be My Guest / Conrad Hilton
(See 10/23/10 update for more details)
Episode 6 — "Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency"
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain
(See 10/23/10 update for more details)
Episode 3 — "My Old Kentucky Home"
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire / Edward Gibbon
Episode 2 — "Love Among the Ruins"
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary
(See 10/20/10 update #2 for more details)
Season 2
Episode 11 — "Jet Set"
Junior Classics Volume One (Fairy Tales And Fables) and Volume Seven (The Animal Book)
Episode 9 — "Six Month Leave"
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies / C. S. Forester
(See 1/22/12 update for more details)
Episode 4 — "Three Sundays"
“A Diamond as Big as the Ritz” from Babylon Revisited and Other Stories / F. Scott Fitzgerald
(See "A Mad Men Mystery Solved" for more details)
Episode 3 — "The Benefactor"
The Agony and the Ecstasy / Irving Stone (click here for more details)
Episode 1 — "For Those Who Think Young"
Atlas Shrugged / Ayn Rand
The Crisis of the Old Order / Arthur Schlesinger Jr.The Americans: The Colonial Experience / Daniel Boorstin
Episode 6 — "Babylon"
Betty Crocker's Hostess Cookbook
You Might Also Like
The Image, or What Happened to the American Dream / Daniel Boorstin
Sex and the Single Girl / Helen Gurley Brown
How to Predict What People Will Buy / Louis Cheskin
The Real Mad Men: The Renegades of Madison Avenue and the Golden Age of Advertising / Andrew Cracknell
From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor / Jerry Della Femina
The Strategy of Desire / Ernest Dichter
Handbook of Consumer Motivations / Ernest Dichter
Memoirs of a Beatnik / Diane di Prima
The Conquest of Cool / Thomas Frank
The Feminine Mystique / Betty Friedan
Mid-Century Ads: Advertising from the Mad Men Era / Jim Heimann
Motivation in Advertising: Motives That Make People Buy / Pierre Martineau
Peyton Place / Grace Metalious
The Hidden Persuaders / Vance Packard
Swimming in the Steno Pool: A Retro Guide to Making it in the Office / Lynn Peril
The Lonely Crowd / David Riesman
Heaven's Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman / Leigh Eric Schmidt
The Hucksters / Frederic Wakeman
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit / Sloan Wilson
Revolutionary Road / Richard Yates
Books About the Show
The Fashion File / Janie Bryant
Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems / edited by Rob Carveth and James South
Mad Men: Dream Come True TV / edited by Gary Edgerton
The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook / Judy Gelman
Mad Men: The Illustrated World / Dyna Moe
Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the Hit Tv Show / Newman, Stephanie
Analyzing Mad Men: Critical Essays on the Television Series / edited by Scott Stoddart
Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America / Natasha Vargas-Cooper